Law on surrogacy limits use of a donor’s sperm to 75 times

The Centre on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court that it was finalizing a legislation to allow surrogacy only to childless Indian couples and address the finer points, including parental rights over surrogate child, linked to the sensitive issue.Dhananjay Mahapatra | TNN | October 29, 2015, 09:00 IST

Madhavi Rajadhyaksha New Delhi: A day after deciding to ban commercial surrogacy, the Centre on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court that it was finalizing a legislation to allow surrogacy only to childless Indian couples and address the finer points, including parental rights over surrogate child, linked to the sensitive issue.

Solicitor general Ranjit Kumar informed a bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and N V Ramana about the government's decision to restrain foreign couples from using Indian surrogate mothers for having a child and requested for two weeks' time to file an affidavit detailing the notifications issued on this issue.

Immediately after the hearing, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) wrote to all registered medical practitioners informing that the government has decided to limit surrogacy to "Indian married couples only and not to foreigners" and requested them "not to entertain any foreigners for availing surrogacy services in India".

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has also withdrawn the 2013 notification allowing free import of frozen human embryo by putting it in the negative import list, Kumar informed the court. The SG also said parental right of the surrogate child would be decided between the surrogate mother and the commissioning couple.

"The donor of sperm or egg would not claim any right over the surrogate child," the government said. In an affidavit filed later in the court through advocate Wasim A Qadri, it said, "If a commissioning couple refuses to take care of a child born with disabilities, the couple will be penalized and, simultaneously, safeguards have been provided under proposed legislation to take care of such abandoned child."

The draft Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill has attempted to deal with finer points and questions raised by medical practitioners and activists.

The proposed legislation says, "A semen bank shall not supply the sperm of a single donor for use more than 75 times. No woman shall donate oocytes (eggs) more than six times in her life, with not less than a three-month interval between the oocyte pick-ups.

"No woman should be treated with gametes (reproductive cells or sex cells) or embryos derived from the gametes of more than one man or woman during any one treatment cycle. The ART clinic shall never mix semen from two individuals before use.

"Collection of gametes from a person whose death is imminent shall only be permissible if such person's spouse intends to avail assisted reproductive technology to have a child. No ART clinic shall use ova that are derived from a foetus, in any process of in-vitro fertilization."

The bill proposes to limit collection of semen by semen banks from men aged between 21 years and 45 years and oocytes from women aged between 21 years and 35 years and "examine the donors for such diseases, sexually transmitted or otherwise, as may be prescribed, and all other communicable diseases which may endanger the health of the parents, or any one of them, surrogate or child".

"No semen bank shall divulge the name, identity or address of any sperm donor to any person or assisted reproductive technology clinic except in pursuance of an order or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction," the proposed legislation says.

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